Councilman Greenlee Wants Tickets For Street Trash To Be More Specific

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – A city councilman wants to reign in city inspectors who ticket residents for improperly putting out their trash.

Streets Department inspectors for years have ticketed residents who leave trash at the curb on days other their regular collection day. Sometimes that trash was left by someone else. Councilman Bill Greenlee says the citations lack specifics.

“Often times these violations are written with the very general code ‘sidewalk not litter free.’ Well, what does that mean? Was there one potato chip bag? Were there six trash bags? That kind of thing.”

So Greenlee today is proposing revising the law that allows for such citations so that the inspectors must be specific and must do their best to determine if the trash in fact belonged to the homeowner. That, Greenlee admits, might involve inspecting the trash, and might prove difficult.